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Published June 21, 2019

Book Covers of Note, June 2019

Apparently it is June already. I’m pretty sure it’s a terrible mistake. 

Here are your book covers of note.


Aug 9 —  Fog by Kathryn Scanlan; design by Na Kim (Farrar Straus & Giroux MCD / June 2019)


Cogito by Victor Dixen; design by Jim Tierney (Collection R / May 2019)

This reminded me of something. I’m not sure exactly what. The best I could up with was Nicole Caputo‘s stripey op-art cover for Liveblog by Megan Boyle, but that’s not it at all… 


The Girl at the Door by Veronica Raimo; design by Julian Humphries (Fourth Estate / June 2019)


The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey; design by Will Staehle (Harper Voyager / June 2019)


Lie With Me by Philippe Besson; design by Na Kim (Scribner / April 2019)


The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write by Gregory Orr; design by Jared Oriel (W.W. Norton / June 2019)


Malina by Ingeborg Bachman; design by Peter Mendelsund (New Directions / June 2019)


Norco ’80 by Peter Houlahan; design by Jaya Miceli (Counterpoint / June 2019)


November by Jorge Galán; design by Steve Leard (Little, Brown / June 2019)

I’m starting to detect a colour scheme at work here, Steve… ;-) 


On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong; design by Darren Haggar; photograph by Sam Contis (Penguin Press / June 2019)

Are we seeing a trend for close cropped photographs of… arms? (Don’t get me wrong, these are both beautiful photographs / covers.)

Also of note in a compare-and-contrast sort of way, the cover of the UK edition of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous published by Jonathan Cape was designed by Suzanne Dean:

 


Open Me by Lisa Locascio; design by Kelly Winton; collage by Katrien de Blauwer (Grove / June 2019)


Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn; design by Steve Attardo; handlettering by Sarahmay Wilkinson (Liveright / June 2019)


Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh; design by David Curtis (Tor / June 2019)


The Social Photo by Nathan Jurgenson; design by Pablo Delcan (Verso / May 2019)


The Sun On My Head by Geovani Martins; design by Clare Skeats (Faber & Faber / June 2019)


The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri; design by Christopher Gale (Canongate / May 2019)


The White Death by Gabriel Urza; design by Joan Wong (Nouvella / June 2019)

This reminds me (a little bit) of the Penguin English Library covers art directed by Coralie Bickford-Smith a few years ago:


William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll by Casey Rae; design by Matt Avery (University of Texas Press / June 2019)

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Published April 15, 2019

Book Covers of Note, April 2019

Well, if the sun’s turned cold and the sky’s got black, it must be April!1 Here are this month’s book cover selections… 


The Affairs of the Falcóns by Melissa Rivero; design Allison Saltzman; lettering Boyoun Kim (Ecco / April 2019)


All Ships Follow Me by Mieke Eerkens; design Henry Sene Yee (Picador USA / April 2019)

Another cover for the Lydian file. (I posted a link to this on Twitter, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here — Kaitlyn Tiffany recently wrote a piece on the Lydian phenomenon for Vox if you want to read a bit more about it) 


Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg; design Lauren Peters-Collaer (Scribner / April 2019)


The Flip by Jeffery J. Kripal; design by Tree Abraham (Bellevue Literary Press / March 2019)


Four Words for Friend by Marek Kohn; design by Clare Skeats (Yale University Press / April 2019)

Some lovely type there… Can anyone tell me what the title typeface is please? It seems like a good alternative for our old friend Lydian there…

The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara; design by Erin Craig; art by Matt Buck (Hanover Square / March 2019)

Is this the first Harlequin book cover to feature on the site? Possibly… 


Never a Lovely So Real by Colin Asher; design by Jonathan Bush (W. W. Norton / April 2019)

A couple of bold design decisions here — neither the author name or the subtitle (“The Life and Work of Nelson Algren”) are on the front cover.


The New Me by Halle Butler; design by Rachel Willey (Penguin / March 2019)


Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein; design by Stephanie Ross; photograph Matt McClain (Knopf / April 2019)


The Other Americans by Laila Lalami; design by Janet Hansen (Pantheon Books / March 2019)


The Mountain that Eats Men by Ander Izagirre; design by Steve Leard (Zed Books / April 2019)


Swift by David Baker; design by Sarahmay Wilkinson (W.W. Norton / April 2019)


The Volunteer by Salvatore Scibona; design by Rachel Willey (Penguin / March 2019)


What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young; design by Sarah Huny Young (Ecco / April 2019)


You Are What You Read by Jodie Jackson; design by Steve Leard (Unbound / April 2019)

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Published February 14, 2019

Book Covers of Note February 2019

Thanks to the weather cancelling everything, I’m not horrendously late with this month’s covers post!


All the Lives We Ever Lived by Katharine Smyth; design by Michael Morris (Crown / January 2019)


Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James; cover art by Pablo Gerardo Camacho (Riverhead / February 2019)


Consent by Leo Benedictus; design by Alex kirby (Faber & Faber / February 2019)


The Current by Tim Johnston; design by Pete Garceau (Algonquin / January 2019)

You can read about the icy process behind this cover at Spine Magazine. 


The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay; design by Kelly Winton (Grove / January 2019)


The Five by Hallie Rubenhold; design by Jo Thomson (Transworld / February 2019)

I like this jacket a lot, but it’s what’s under it that really caught my eye:

The whole package looks great:


Golden State by Ben H. Winters; design by Gregg Kulick (Mulholland Books / January 2019)

The cover of Ben H. Winters previous novel Underground Airlines, also published by Mulholland Books, was designed by Oliver Munday:

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters; design by Oliver Munday (Mulholland Books / July 2016)
Golden State by Ben H. Winters; design by Gregg Kulick (Mulholland Books / January 2019)


Good Enough by Jen Petro-Roy; design by Liz Dresner; cover art by art Romy Blümel (Feiwel & Friends / February 2019)


Hold Still by Nina LaCour; design Samira Iravani; cover art by Adams Carvalho (Penguin / February 2019)

This is, of course, the same creative team behind the cover for We Are OK by Nina LaCour:

We Are Okay by Nina Lacour; design by Samira Iravani; illustration by Adams Carvalho (Dutton / February 2017)


Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli; design by Jennifer Carrow (Knopf / February 2019)

The cover for the UK edition of Lost Children Archive, published by Fourth Estate, was designed by Jo Walker: 


Muscle by Alan Trotter; design by Gray318 (Faber & Faber / February 2019)


Never Enough by Judith Grisel; design by Emily Mahon (Doubleday / February 2019)


The Peacock Feast by Lisa Gornick; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / February 2019)


Sick-Note Britain by Adrian Massey; design by Steve Leard (Hurst / February 2019)


Tentacle by Rita Indiana; design by Steve Marsden (And Other Stories / January 2019)


Thick by Tressie McMillan Cotton; design by Oliver Munday (The New Press / January 2019)

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Published August 14, 2018

Book Covers of Note August 2018

Good grief! We’re halfway through August! I suppose I’d better post some book covers… 


Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore by Emma Southon; design by Mark Ecob (Unbound / August 2018)


All these Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth; design by Alicia Tatone (William Morrow / July 2018)


Certain American States by Catherine Lacey; design by Na Kim (Farrar, Straus & Giroux / August 2018)


Cherry by Nico Walker; design by Janet Hansen (Knopf / August 2018)

One for the skulls on book covers list. (I haven’t updated this list in a while, but there are a few more here.)


Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford; design by Steve Leard (Oneworld / August 2018)


Four by Andy Jones; design by Patrik Svensson (Hodder & Stoughton / July 2018)


Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry; design by David Curtis (Katherine Tegen Books / August 2018)


Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar; design Janet Hansen (Knopf / July 2018)


Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone; design by Derek Thornton/Faceout Studio (Lake Union / August 2018)

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Amazon’s Lake Union imprint is doing a scarily good job with their genre covers. 


A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne; design by Jo Thomson (Doubleday / August 2018)


The Line That Held Us by David Joy; design by Michael Morris (G.P. Putnam’s Sons / August 2018)


This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga; design Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf / August 2018)


Notes from the Fog by Ben Marcus; design Peter Mendelsund (Knopf / August 2018)


Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin; design by Alex Merto (Scribner / May 2018)

The cover of the UK edition was designed by Hayley Warnham. And apparently rubber glove covers are a thing now, you freakin’ weirdos… 

Pretend I’m Dead by Jen Beagin; design by Alex Merto (Scribner / May 2018)

The cover of The Trauma Cleaner was designed by W.H. Chong. 

The Reservoir Tapes by Jon McGregor; design by Strick&Williams (Catapult / August 2018)

This goes very nicely with the cover of the US edition of Reservoir 13 also designed by Strick&Williams:


Rust and Stardust by T. Greenwood; design by Olga Grlic (St. Martin’s Press / August 2018)


A Short Film About Disappointment by Joshua Mattson; design by Ben Denzer (Penguin Press / August 2018)


The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / August 2018)


A Superior Spectre by Angela Meyer; design by Design by Committee (Ventura / August 2018)

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Published May 14, 2018

Book Covers of Note May 2018


America is Not the Heart by Elaine Castillo; design by Gray318 (Atlantic Books / May 2018)

A great new entry in the books on book covers genre! 


Awayland by Ramona Ausubel; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead / March 2018)


Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff Allende; design by Chris Bentham (Penguin Books / May 2018)

Related: I have a board of skull covers on Pinterest if that is your thing.


The Comedown by Rebekah Frumkin; design by Rachel Willey (Henry Holt / April 2018)


Exactly by Simon Winchester; design by Julian Humphries (William Collins / May 2018)

For some reason this reminded me of a Peter Mendelsund’s 2009(!) cover design for Vintage’s Foucault list. In reality, they don’t actually look that a like at all:


The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan; design Julia Connolly (Harvill Secker / April 2018)


The Honey Farm by Harriet Alida Lye; design by Zoe Norvell (Liveright / May 2018)

This fits both the ‘centred big white type‘ trend and the ‘type and flora‘ trend, but I still like it. 


Invasion by Peadar O’Guilin; cover art by Jeffrey Alan Love (David Fickling Books / March 2018)

Jeffrey also did a cover for The Call, the first book in this series,


It Needs To Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)


The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / May 2018) 


A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley; design by Kyle G. Hunter (Graywolf / May 2018)

I have to confess that I’m including this partly because I recently had a conversation with a publisher about a street scene on a book cover. The publisher said the author insisted on using a specific photo, which always makes things difficult, but all the same, I felt the photo could be used more effectively. The cover for A Lucky Man isn’t fancy, but it does the job really well — while there is a sense of place and atmosphere (it may even be recognizable if you know the street?), there is also ambiguity that leaves it open to interpretation. The blue of the authors name echoes the blue of a sign in the photo, but it doesn’t over do it — it’s nicely understated. 


The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner; design by Peter Mendelsund; photograph by Nan Goldin (Scribner / May 2018)

Using a Nan Goldin photo feels like a bold choice — especially for one of the most anticipated books of the year. I don’t know… perhaps Goldin’s photos aren’t as controversial as they once were? It seems appropriate to me, but then I Goldin’s photography. I guess the cover of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihana used a photo by Peter Hujar…?

In any case, it’s quite different look from The Flamethrowers cover (designed by Charlotte Strick), and yet the compositions seem to echo each other (the horizontal bands of title — rectangular photo — author) when you place them side by side:

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D Jackson; design by Erin Fitzsimmons (Katherine Tegen Books / May 2018)


The National Debt by Martin Slater; design by Steve Leard (Hurst / May 2018)


On Gravity by A. Zee; design by Jason Alejandro (Princeton University Press / May 2018)


The Pisces by Melissa Broder; design by Rachel Willey (Bloomsbury / May 2018)


See What Can be Done by Lorrie Moore; design by Jonny Pelham (Faber & Faber / May 2019)

You can read about the process behind this cover on the Faber blog.


Sharp by Michelle Dean; design by Bekki Guyatt  (Little, Brown & Co. / April 2018)

The cover of the US edition published by Grove was designed by Gretchen Mergenthaler and Daniel Rembert, and features an illustration by Kathryn Rathke:


Tomb of the Unknown Racist by Blanche McCrary Boyd; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)

Nicole’s recent covers for Counterpoint all work quite well together. It’s interesting that snaking curves — a worm, a road, an actual snake! — appears in the background of these three:

Tomb of the Unknown Racist by Blanche McCrary Boyd; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)
It Needs To Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / May 2019)
The Gunners by Rebecca Kauffman; design by Nicole Caputo (Counterpoint / March 2018)


Why We Fight by Mike Martin; design by Steve Leard (Hurst / May 2018)

Clearly I have a thing for black, white and red covers this month! 

The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah; design by Jack Smyth (Simon & Schuster / May 2018) 

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Published October 3, 2015

Yellow: The Collected Book by OFF LIFE

 

Front and Back cover

Back in November 2014, the team behind free bi-monthly comic anthology OFF LIFE asked 52 artists to illustrate 52 weeks of news. Now, with the 52 weeks nearly up, editor Daniel Humphry, art director Steve Leard, and production manager Sarah Hamilton are Kickstarting Yellow, a hardback collection of every piece from the year with additional interviews and commentary. Contributors include Jean Jullien, Hattie Stewart, Supermundane, Stanley Chow, and a whole host of other talented illustrators. OFF LIFE’s goal is £10,000. You can support the project here.

 

Supermundane in Yellow
Supermundane for Yellow

Neasden Control Centre for Yellow
Neasden Control Centre for Yellow

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Published April 7, 2014

Recent Book Covers of Note April 2014

accidental-universe
The Accidental Universe by Alan Lightman; design by Pablo Delcán (Pantheon January 2014)

9781447254225
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi; design by Jo Thomson (Picador March 2014)

9781594631399B
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi; design by Helen Yentus (Riverhead March 2014)

9781594205798

Chop Chop by Simon Wroe; design by Ben Wiseman (Penguin April 2014)

danish-dynamite-steve-leard
Danish Dynamite: The Story of Football’s Greatest Cult Team by Rob Smyth, Lars Eriksen & Mike Gibbons; design by Steve Leard (Bloomsbury April 2014)

dept-of-speculation-gray-318
Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill; design by Gray318 (Granta March 2014)

9781555976712
The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison; design by Kimberly Glyder (Graywolf April 2014)

exception

L’Exception by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir; design by David Pearson (Éditions Zulma April 2014)

David’s cover design for Rosa Candida by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Éditions Zulma March 2011) is also stunning.

mistakes-i-made-at-work
Mistakes I Made at Work edited by Jessica Bacal; design by Jaya Miceli (Plume April 2014)

quand-pépin
Quand j’étais l’Amérique by Elsa Pépin; design by David Drummond (Les Éditions XYZ April 2014)

Resurrection
Resurrection by Wolf Haas; design by Christopher Brian King (Melville House January 2014)

The cover for next book in the series, Come, Sweet Death! (Melville House July 2014), is great too.

there-goes-gravity-alex-merto
There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll by Lisa Robinson; design by Alex Merto (Riverhead April 2014)

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